The Iraq thread 4

[kerosene 0]

It's sad I will not deny that. That said I think you have unrealistic expectations about warfare.  Special care in war can only be taken so far before you end up fighting with both hands tied behind your back.

   I personally believe that fighting in baby steps does more damage in the long run. Several big battles that end a war are better than years and years of policing.

    If world war 2 had been fought with as much restrictions as you seem to deem necessary, it would still be waging today. Imagine how high the death toll would be by now?

quote]

Theres not much point going somewhere to bring democracy and stabilty if your plan is to flatten the country, which seems to be what you advocate.  This is a war that the U.S govt choose to initiate of thier own freewill.  

Any criticism, not of the idea of going to war, but even how the war should be run was swept aside, mainly because of arrogance.  Thats why the coalition forces should constrain themselves in the way they fight.  Pummeling Iraq until it submits wont win a war on terror, it'll just piss off more muslims, or piss them off even more than they already were anyway.

Besides I dont think the insurgents will necessarily oblige in fighting big battles with the U.S.

[walker 0]

Hi all

My big worry about this stupid Iraq War is since it was proved there was no link between Sadam and Al Qaida and that the WMD never existed, that it is a distraction from the real enemy Al Qaida and it has done nothing other than strengthen them.

While TBA has been off chasing phantoms the real enemy has been left to gather their forces and conduct their plans without let or hinderance.

Worried Walker

[python3 0]

heh, yeah i wonder who is to blame for the next al q strike?

[bn880 5]

The axis of evil, the axis of evil my friend. Fear the axis, and the tangents.

[Baphomet 0]

Royal marine wounded by friendly fire.

Quote[/b] ]A Royal Marine from Taunton's 49 Commando was rushed to a military hospital in Iraq - after being shot by American troops.

The Captain, who has not been named, was shot in the leg after panic-stricken US soldiers raked the military convoy he was travelling in with bullets.

The American soldiers were by a broken down Humvee jeep and opened fire when they mistook the patrol of Royal Marines for terrorists.

Uniformed British soldiers were in two civilian Land Rover Discoveries clearly marked with the words British Forces when US troops began shooting.

Machine gun fire hit the front and back of one of the Land Rovers as it passed the Humvee.

The gun fire only stopped when a brave Royal Marine jumped from one of the vehicles and screamed at US troops to stop shooting.

The last part of the quote resonates with a bit of dark humor. Sad and absurd as the whole incident is.

I personally think it is true that the U.S forces out there are just ready to shoot anything if they think it means one of them taking a bullet.

Personally I'd be screaming a lot more than "Stop shooting" at them if it happened to me. I could imagine the guy could've thrown in a "Fookin' wankers!" in there for emphasis.

On the other end of the rifle. I'd feel like a pretty big asshole for doing something like that, afterwards.

[denoir 0]

Fearsome power of marines in Falluja [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

As the battle for Falluja goes on, the American military estimates 600 people, whom they describe as insurgents, have been killed as well as 18 US soldiers.

BBC correspondent Paul Wood, embedded with US marines in Falluja, has been witnessing the action and gave this account to the BBC's Today programme.

Well it is no surprise that 600 have been killed - if indeed that figure is accurate.

The marines now are pushing out south of the main road. The insurgents are believed to be confined to a narrow corridor which runs about 2km south of that road.

And the technique is literally to insert the ordinary marines - the grunts as they call themselves - wait until they draw fire and then hit back with everything they have got. So you see a fleeting glimpse of one of the militants in the back of a room or jumping across a rooftop and then literally in the two hours I was out last night, thousands of rounds of ammunition are expended, tanks fire and the place is left in ruins.

This is the kind of pressure that the militants are under.

South of the main road now is where the main effort of the coalition forces is going to be concentrated over the next couple of days. But it will be two days of very bitter, very difficult house-to-house and street-to-street fighting. How many civilians have been killed - people who either have not left through choice or have been unable to leave - is the crucial question. I suspect we will have to wait for a definitive answer until the smoke has literally cleared.

As an embedded reporter, I see literally what the military sees.

It is not particularly that the marines want to censor me but I am stuck with one unit and that is all I can see. When we went through south of the main road last night, the streets - no surprise here - were absolutely deserted, the shops were shuttered.

One can only imagine the plight of the civilians.

I have questioned many times senior officers here about the use of heavy weapons because they have been using 155mm artillery in Falluja, they have been dropping 2,000 pound bombs.

The bullets that they fire are high velocity. The buildings are of poor construction here - the bullets travel through the walls. And when they see what they believe to be militants - and these marines are incredibly calm under fire, they are almost unflinching - they do wait until they see a guy with a gun but when they see that, they open up with everything they have got and the question is, how much collateral damage is there going to be?

At the moment we simply do not know.

I wonder how much of Falluja is going to be left after this.

Now, while I can understand the US motivation for such tactics as for them the lives of their marines are far more valuable than the lives of Iraqi civilians. What I cannot understand is Allawi supporting this. It's an Iraqi city getting reduced to rubbles and there are undoubtebly heaps of Iraqi civilians dying.

[Donnervogel 0]

Yeah Denoir...

My problem with this is that they only make things worse. Even when they kill all the Insurgents that were in there before the attack they will only produce thousands of new insurgents or insurgency supporters. Again there are more people that lost their loved ones and/or all their property.

The US forces must understand that there is a difference between total open war and peace enforcing/keeping. You can use brutal power to smash an enemy army or if you want to devastate the enemy. But when you try to win the hearts and minds of people you must take more risks for your own troops in order to inflict the least dammage possible to civillian infrastructure and offer maximum safety to innocent civillians.

I can only shake my head when I see 155mm arty firing into a city still populated with civillians. I know arty can be very precise but a 155mm shell just makes a huge boom. It doesn't matter it hit precisely. everything around it will be destroyed anyway.

I fear the US tactics are too short sighted and is not recognizing iraqi lifes as equal. In the short term they can save US lifes. But in the long term they will lose more because they only lengthen the insurgency and that will claim many US lifes too.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

I wonder how much of Falluja is going to be left after this.

I think more than of the Twin Towers.

MfG Lee

P.S. And no, I don't want to start another big discussion, about (missing) links between al qaeda and iraq. And also not if the insurgents are terrorists or not.

[Donnervogel 0]

errr... if you want to make such a comparision you would have to compare manhatten to falluja and even that is a lacking comparision.

[Goeth 0]

I wonder how much of Falluja is going to be left after this.

I think more than of the Twin Towers.

MfG Lee

P.S. And no, I don't want to start another big discussion, about (missing) links between al qaeda and iraq. And also not if the insurgents are terrorists or not.

Ehhh...

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Ehhh...

I think he means that Fallujah will be standing still....

[Pathy 0]

Royal marine wounded by friendly fire.

Quote[/b] ]A Royal Marine from Taunton's 49 Commando was rushed to a military hospital in Iraq - after being shot by American troops.

The Captain, who has not been named, was shot in the leg after panic-stricken US soldiers raked the military convoy he was travelling in with bullets.

The American soldiers were by a broken down Humvee jeep and opened fire when they mistook the patrol of Royal Marines for terrorists.

Uniformed British soldiers were in two civilian Land Rover Discoveries clearly marked with the words British Forces when US troops began shooting.

Machine gun fire hit the front and back of one of the Land Rovers as it passed the Humvee.

The gun fire only stopped when a brave Royal Marine jumped from one of the vehicles and screamed at US troops to stop shooting.

The last part of the quote resonates with a bit of dark humor. Sad and absurd as the whole incident is.

I personally think it is true that the U.S forces out there are just ready to shoot anything if they think it means one of them taking a bullet.

Personally I'd be screaming a lot more than "Stop shooting" at them if it happened to me. I could imagine the guy could've thrown in a "Fookin' wankers!" in there for emphasis.

On the other end of the rifle. I'd feel like a pretty big asshole for doing something like that, afterwards.

I was reading an article today by an American calling the stereotypical British view of US Soldiers - trigger happy cowboys - "snooty" or something like that.

Then an incident like this occurs...and they wonder why we think they are jumpy

[lee_h._oswald 0]

I think he means that Fallujah will be standing still....

Exact.

MfG Lee

[Donnervogel 0]

Yeah. As Dresden is standing still (or shall I say again?) ...

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Yeah. As Dresden is standing still (or shall I say again?) ...

Go ahead and compare Fallujah to Dresden....

[Donnervogel 0]

Some pictures in the news did indeed remind me of Dresden. I am utterly shocked how much dammage was inflicted to the civillian infrastructure.

EDIT:

To clarify what I mean. Of course falluja will still be there and it will be rebuilt. But the dammage is huge nevertheless. And when I look back to the roots of falluja becoming this insurgent stronghold I must say the whole thing could have been prevented with a bit of thinking. If you remember there were protest firsts because the marines took a school in falluja as their base. Parents came to protest that their children could not go to school anymore. And then someone fired into the crowd and killed like seven civillians IIRC (it is not really clear if there was fire from the crowd first or not). Anyway, that's how it began.

Now if you ask me you should fire the idiot who takes a school as a base. With a bit of thinking you can imagine that this must provocate protests. And protests and provocation in an unstable situation are the last thing you want when you want to "win the hearts and minds".

[brgnorway 0]

Some pictures in the news did indeed remind me of Dresden. I am utterly shocked how much dammage was inflicted to the civillian infrastructure.

EDIT:

To clarify what I mean. Of course falluja will still be there and it will be rebuilt. But the dammage is huge nevertheless. And when I look back to the roots of falluja becoming this insurgent stronghold I must say the whole thing could have been prevented with a bit of thinking. If you remember there were protest firsts because the marines took a school in falluja as their base. Parents came to protest that their children could not go to school anymore. And then someone fired into the crowd and killed like seven civillians IIRC (it is not really clear if there was fire from the crowd first or not). Anyway, that's how it began.

Now if you ask me you should fire the idiot who takes a school as a base. With a bit of thinking you can imagine that this must provocate protests. And protests and provocation in an unstable situation are the last thing you want when you want to "win the hearts and minds".

The bombing of Dresden cannot in any respect be compared to whatever is going on in Falluja.

The extent of damage, the number of civilian casualties and not to forget the motivating factor behind both attacks are totally different.

The whole of Dresden was destroyed while much of Falluja is still standing there - allthough I suspect seveal areas might be quite destroyed.

The civilian population wasn't touched and the majority of the inhabitants could evacuate the city before the fighting started. In Dresden the goal was to kill as many civillians as possible - in Falluja the goal is to spare as many civilians as possible. And people may say whatever they want but it's undoubtedly important for both US- and the iraqi authoroties to minimize the civilian casualties in Falluja.

The motivation behind both attacks are also totally different. In Falluja one seeks to kill and reduce the insurgents influence. In Dresden one wanted to waste the whole city with all the population to weaken the german moral. This was the sole goal of Churchill and Bomber Harris.

In Falluja there are at least a fighting opposition. In Dresden there were no military targets apart from some prison camps and military hospital.

Attacking Falluja is not a crime but a real nessecity if elections are to be held. It doesn't matter if one opposes the invasion of Iraq - the best possible solution for the iraqi people is a future election. So, that implies no insurgents destabilizing the political environment.

The bombing of Dresden was certainly not a nessecity! It was a crime on par with Nagasaki! Hideous!

[bn880 5]

I was reading an article today by an American calling the stereotypical British view of US Soldiers - trigger happy cowboys - "snooty" or something like that.

Yeah "snotty" is an actual slang here. general meaning I can describe: Someone who is still snotty thinking they are all that, ignoring others who may be older etc. And from Dict:

Slang. Impertinent; arrogant.

That British soldier jumping out and screaming "Stop Shooting": Hillarious, I was laughing my ass off, I can see myself doing exactly the same thing, but with one or two choice profanities. (I'm serious about the profanities... lol)

[quicksand 0]

NY TIMES:Disguised in Iraqi Uniforms, Rebels Kill a Marine

Quote[/b] ]ALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 12 - The farther south the marines push through this rebellious city, the more often they notice that the men shooting at them are wearing tan uniforms with a smart-looking camouflage pattern that is the color of chocolate chips.

Those are the uniforms of the Iraqi National Guard.On Friday, after several hours of nonstop gun battles around a mosque in southern Falluja had killed about 100 insurgents, the marines said that those tan uniforms had cost one of their own his life the day before. It happened in what they first called an ambush, but now believe was a case of mistaken identity, combined with quick reflexes by insurgents who are using their wits to deadly effect as they approach their last stand.

The insurgents are also believed to have killed marines in the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, with the help of a network of tunnels gouged beneath Falluja for this fight. And they have apparently found a way to zero in with their mortars on strobes that the marines use to mark their position as a protection against friendly fire - strobes that they thought were invisible to their foe.

"You can tell that the quality of the fighters has improved as we've moved south through the city," said Lt. Steven Berch. "They shoot better, they move better, they cover themselves better."

That progression, too, seems to have been part of a plan by the rebels. How well it has worked is open to debate, but the 50-man platoon that lost the marine on Thursday had nine other casualties as well - a stunning rate of 20 percent in a single day - all a result of the rebels' skill.

This tale begins with the Iraqi soldiers who sat in a circle, cross-legged, within the Great Mosque on Friday, wearing those same tan uniforms. The only difference was that these Iraqis had been ordered to mark themselves as friendlies with swatches of red tape on their right arms and white tape on their left legs.

On this day, the soldiers were not doing much of anything except eating MRE's, the American military's "Meals - Ready to Eat." In fact, they have done little if any fighting at all, but as a gesture to Muslim sensitivities are generally the first to enter each mosque as it is taken.

When approached and asked about themselves, the soldiers reflexively lapse into robotic platitudes. "I joined the Iraqi Army to clean the terrorists out of our country," said a man who identified himself only as Muhammad, a Sunni Arab from Mosul. "I am proud to be doing this."

The soldiers have revealed more of themselves during their limited periods of activity. During the gun battle around the mosque, an Iraqi in civilian clothes who had been seriously wounded in the face appeared on the street waving a white flag. "Don't shoot, don't shoot!" he pleaded in Arabic. "I have a family with me. There are women in the car."

There were no obvious signs of an ambush, but two of the Iraqi soldiers said, "Just shoot him." But for whatever reason, the Americans held off, and the man produced his wife, mother and two children, all struck by gunfire. His daughter had been shot in the back and his mother in the head. Trying their best to avoid stepping on another set of Muslim taboos, Marines attempted to remove the bullet from the man's daughter while she was standing up, with her clothes on. Her fate is unknown, but the man's mother died later.

These seemingly loyal Iraqi soldiers had no direct involvement in the Thursday incident first classified as an ambush. But visual memory being what it is, when members of the First Platoon, B Company, First Battalion, Eighth Regiment of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, turned onto a street on Thursday, they saw the chocolate-chip camouflage pattern and hesitated.

There was no red tape on the right arm or white tape on the left leg. It did not matter. Before that registered with the marines, the insurgents opened fire, killing one and wounding two. The rebels fled.

 Disguised in Iraqi Uniforms, Rebels Kill a Marine

Published: November 13, 2004

(Page 2 of 2)

Inside the mosque, Staff Sgt. Eric Brown of the First Platoon looked toward the Iraqis who were eating the MRE's. "They should just take these guys out of here," Sergeant Brown said, "because they're causing my men to hesitate.'' He added, "That hesitation cost my marine his life."

It is not clear whether the bootlegged uniforms have been stolen or bought on the black market, or whether they are actually on the backs of the Iraqis who have been trained and put into the uniforms by Americans as a replacement for Saddam Hussein's disbanded security forces. After an aborted invasion of this city in April, a uniformed group called the Falluja Brigade was formed but quickly disbanded.

"You can't see the tape at night," conceded Col. Craig Tucker, commander of a huge combat team made up of several battalions, including the First Battalion.

Colonel Tucker also conceded that the Iraqi fighters were not in the same league as the marines. But he said, "It's important to the people of Falluja that Iraqi soldiers are here."

The marines here say that insurgents also turn up in the uniforms of the old Iraqi Army. Whether the uniforms are some ploy or just a way to stay warm, though, it is clear that this is not the only way they are getting inside the Americans' heads.

Seven of the First Platoon's casualties Thursday came when marines entered a house and there were two big explosions. Some of the wounded said that grenades had been tossed at them, and when marines later discovered a tunnel system under the house, they surmised that the insurgents had entered that way and attacked. "We were briefed that there was a tunnel system under the city," said Sgt. Sam Williams, who saw the tunnels before the entire structure was destroyed .

As for the insurgents apparently using the American military's strobes - the ones that protect against friendly fire - to guide their nighttime mortar attacks, the marines solved that problem by removing them from the buildings they occupied.

And for a few minutes on Thursday night, as Capt. Read Omohundro and about a dozen other members of B Company sat in the dark on a rooftop, things were quiet. There was only slight concern when Captain Omohundro heard on the radio that a group of about 15 insurgents had been identified somewhere close to his position, and that an airstrike had been called in to destroy them.

Then something clicked in his mind, and he rushed to the radio and called off the airstrike. The captain had been mistaken for an insurgent.

A very insightful story that leads to alot of conclusions to be drawn.

The main question that bothers me now is.After 6 days of fighting atleast 25 Marines were killed with insurgents at best a quarter of their man power in the city.No other city has resisted during the invasion like Fallujah-not Nassyriah,Um Qasr and especially not Baghdad.

Why haven't the Republican Guard or the normal Iraqi army units engaged the US forces in urban warefere where they stood a chance as all acounts point out they fought at the outskirts of the cities or in barren desert in viertually lost battles before they even begun,were they afraid of civillian casualties as I find it the only logical reason.

Quote[/b] ]"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" he pleaded in Arabic. "I have a family with me. There are women in the car."

There were no obvious signs of an ambush, but two of the Iraqi soldiers said, "Just shoot him." But for whatever reason, the Americans held off, and the man produced his wife, mother and two children, all struck by gunfire. His daughter had been shot in the back and his mother in the head. Trying their best to avoid stepping on another set of Muslim taboos, Marines attempted to remove the bullet from the man's daughter while she was standing up, with her clothes on. Her fate is unknown, but the man's mother died later.

What kind of Iraqis are this men,part of the Iraqi National Guard with the Marines in Fallujah.While I realise that most are Kurdish Peshmergas are they so emotionless in front of their kin leaving Marines to care more about the fate of a severly wounded Iraqi and his daughter?

[Donnervogel 0]

The bombing of Dresden cannot in any respect be compared to whatever is going on in Falluja.

See I knew that was comming so I wrote that edit.

Again. Yes of course it's not comparable. As the attack on the WTC is not compareable with falluja. When you read the previous page you'll see that I said something about that comparision topic and now I mentioned Dresden - a bad comparision overall - as kind of "side blow" on that. Later I answered again that "some pictures" reminded me of Dresden. That doesn't mean I say falluja is like dresden. It just means that some areas of falluja are in ruins.

Btw. Dresden was not completly destroyed in the secound world war (if you go there you will see that there are quite some parts in dresden that weren't destoyed). Unfortunatly most of the beautiful old buildings in Dresden (It was prolly the most beautiful city in the world - at least IMHO) were destroyed and most of the old city along with the railway station and the industrial areas. Anyway.

back to topic. I really doubt that the goal of the US attack on falluja was to spare as many lifes as possible. As I see it - considering their destructive tactics - it's to spare as many american lifes as possible. I don't say they target civillians. But they don't put in too much effort to spare them.

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ]Unfortunatly most of the beautiful old buildings in Dresden (It was prolly the most beautiful city in the world - at least IMHO) were destroyed and most of the old city along with the railway station and the industrial areas. Anyway.

Yes, the Dresden bombing is one of the single worst war crimes ever. So sad!

Quote[/b] ]I really doubt that the goal of the US attack on falluja was to spare as many lifes as possible. As I see it - considering their destructive tactics - it's to spare as many american lifes as possible. I don't say they target civillians. But they don't put in too much effort to spare them.

They cannot afford not to spare civilians. The use of excesive force and high death tolls among Fallujas inhabitants will be critical for the ordinary iraqi citizen when the election takes place. Allthough I'm not in a position to tell whether the general iraqi man or woman loathes the US presence I sort of expect it. Whatever happends in Falluja won't change that - and it's understandable. However, the iraqi people will judge the results of the new iraqi army (or whatever it's called) , and if "too many" people dies I think one can kiss goodbye to the legitimacy of the iraqi authoroties supported by the US.

So Falluja is a sort of testing stone - and if there are lots of casualties or if a humanitarian catastrophy developes the political battle will be lost for Allawi.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

What kind of Iraqis are this men,part of the Iraqi National Guard with the Marines in Fallujah.

I reckon its the same people that kept Saddam in power for so long.

If they are Kurds, then I can understand where they are coming from as well, I know a guy who's family was wiped out by the gas attacks, and friends of his were killed in Turkey. Let's just say, considering all the anger, he is surprisingly civil.

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ] Our situation is very difficult - we don't have food or water

Abu Mustafa

Falluja resident  

Quote[/b] ]The US military says it holds most of the city, but reports give differing accounts of the extent of control being exercised by US and Iraqi troops.

An aid agency has criticised US troops for denying entry to a relief convoy.

The Iraqi Red Crescent expressed growing fears about the plight of trapped residents, who they say desperately need food and medicines.

But the US military says the city is not safe for aid workers, adding that its troops will deliver any help that is needed.

Are we looking at a possible humanitarion catastrophy?

BBC World News

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Real combat footage

wmv approx 4 MB

(any concerns about this video please pm, so I can take it out before a mod gets here. But I see no breach of forum rules)

[theavonlady 2]

Real combat footage

wmv approx 4 MB

To really appreciate this video, run it under the EECP or Y2K3 mod.